After the cheers, and they were loud and long among the Burton Albion supporters to celebrate the club's promotion to the Football League, came the sighs of relief. Most audible among those came from Roy McFarland, who took on an apparent foregone conclusion from Nigel Clough in January and watched in horror as the Brewers began to droop.

Whereas Burton were sauntering into the League for the first time in their history when Clough left for Derby County in January, the books will record no more than a shuffle in April. After a run of four defeats from five matches, Burton knew a point would guarantee promotion. Their immediate problem was that Torquay wanted all three to make the play-off semi-finals for the second year running.

In the end the home side's need was greater and it showed. But with Cambridge failing to win by the margin they would have required to topple Burton, a 2-1 home win suited both sides, and McFarland, just fine. "I'm just pleased I didn't let anyone down," said McFarland. "Had it not happened, it would have been the lowest point of my career and I'm not sure how I would have recovered. I set myself a target of 91 points when I took the job on and we're three short of that at the finish but we still got promoted."

McFarland must have got bored of questions about Clough, who was in attendance to oversee the finish of a job he started, but he praised his predecessor. "Nigel didn't just start this season, he had done the groundwork for 10 years before. When I took the job on I didn't know whether or not I was being foolish."

It would have taken something improbable, but not impossible, to answer that question for McFarland but at least his side did not have to win here to secure the title. Even so they took a decent stride towards it when Marc Goodfellow gave them the lead in the ninth minute but Torquay drew level five minutes later through Chris Hargreaves.

At half-time, as results then stood, both sides were on course for their desired outcome but Torquay, knowing that a point might not suffice, set about removing all doubt with a goal in the first minute of the second half from Elliot Benyon.

It set up a two-legged play-off with Histon, starting on Friday, and their manager, Paul Buckle, is hopeful his side can follow Burton into League Two. "We've just got to get back into the league now. But if this season has taught me anything it's expect the unexpected." For now at least, McFarland can stop expecting that.